


That Burnt Hair Smell

by RedAnthem



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Episode: s03e16 The Southern Raiders, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:28:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24033553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedAnthem/pseuds/RedAnthem
Summary: Takes place during Zuko and Katara's manhunt during The Southern Raiders. Zuko and Katara have a lot in common, including not being very good at comedy, but hey, they make do.Can be read as both platonic or pre-relationship.
Relationships: Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 42





	That Burnt Hair Smell

**Author's Note:**

> The very first fanfiction I ever wrote was when I was about 7-8 years old, and it featured Zutara going on a mission to find Zuko's mom. This is the first Zutara-esque fic I've written since then, so, I hope I did little me justice.

It was late, on the night Katara bloodbended the Southern Raiders captain, when they located the small, lonely corner of the Fire Nation that their target was hiding in. When Appa flew over under the cover of the hazy sky, Zuko could see the familiar red rooftops dotting the hilly landscape. They looked like mushrooms, to him. Like the poisonous ones he and Uncle encountered while they wandered the Western Earth Kingdom, too obviously toxic to consider eating even when the hunger was so bad he couldn’t sleep.

They landed quietly miles away from the village, shrouded in the protective covering of the forest. Bili trees halfway surrounded the small clearing they’d spotted in the air. Camp was made in relative silence with the exception of neutral, clipped, telegraphic speech.  _ Find wood. Move there. Pitch that tent. _

Together, they had run Appa ragged, although he’d benefited from the lesser-than-usual weight. He felt guilty anyways, being the only one to have caught any sleep. He heard Appa low in the patch of grass, content to graze and rest. 

Katara hadn’t slept in the past two days. The only sign of the expected exhaustion was an unfamiliar fragility and slowness in her movements that were so typically decisive and purposeful. Otherwise, she was jittery in a way that set Zuko on edge; as if she were slightly shaking in an almost imperceptible way, like an excited, live wire. 

The sky darkened from a light grey to a deeper, thick night. Zuko always wondered what it was that made overcast days so oppressive. Being a firebender, the lack of sun obviously weakened him to a degree, but it didn’t explain as to why it felt like the whole world was sitting on Katara too. He didn’t want it to. He had hoped that helping Katara here would make her feel lighter, being able to face the man who took her mother, her childhood, away from her. But maybe he was wrong to assume that. The burden wasn’t gone just yet.

A small cook fire was made before the sky dimmed fully, and Katara, in a state of carelessness he’d come to know was unusual for her, had accidentally let her long, thick waves of brown hair fall too close to the flames. The smell hit his nose before he realized what had happened. Katara had shrieked the air in half, and although her hair hadn’t sustained too much damage, the noxious scent lingered. He gave a small apology for not paying more attention, but she had shrugged him off, telling him she didn’t need his help to watch her own hair. He had simply nodded, not willing to argue further.

After Zuko quieted the culprit, using his firebending to force the heat out of the dying embers, they both settled on opposite sides of the fire pit, the sky cold and misty and the sound of summer cicadas filling the air with their mesmerizing repetitive tune. It had taken Zuko quite some time to get used to this sort of background noise. At the palace and the capital in his youth, the world was always so quiet and hollow, that the sounds of footsteps would echo off the palace’s high ceilings or off the large mansion walls of the noble clan mansions. At his ship, the drum and hiccups of the engine would keep him awake-he never wanted to get comfortable with them, telling himself he wouldn’t be living here for long. While he wandered the Earth Kingdom and Ba Sing Se, the noise changed constantly as he left windy, desolate deserts and plains for patches of the noisy brass symbols and clatter of civilization. 

He thought he liked the sound of the cicadas the best, even though it didn’t help him sleep any. It reminded him of Ember Island and better memories.

His dreams were little more than hypnic jerks, really-memories replayed before his eyes and remixed. He practiced the meditative habits his Uncle had taught him; allowing the memories to slip through his mind and float away. Accept them as they are, and move on. Images of running in long beach-side grasses with a much smaller (and less sinister) Azula. Lu Ten, before. Iroh allowing him to roll on the floor of his room in the beach mansion, telling him myths and stories. Father’s hand on his shoulder. Mother helping him build sand castles.

The smell of burnt hair still lingered, and his mind drew him back to that day he lost everything. He knew he wasn’t wrong now, knew he didn’t deserve to be shamed and burned, love doesn’t work like that, but the smell still lingered all the same, the same smell of burnt hair mixed with blistering pain too  _ too close- _

The loud humming of the cicadas nearly masked the sound of Katara slipping out of her sleeping bag. He heard her small feet patter across their camp somewhere in the distance. He initially thought nothing of it, but his worry grew with each passing minute. 

Eventually, he drew himself up and out of his own sleeping bag. The dense fog nearly obscured the moon, which had just begun waning. In front, as if haloed, Katara knelt, her body supported by a fallen stump of a tree. 

Zuko knew she hadn’t slept at all. Worry and concern grew in his chest even as his inner sense told him to leave her alone, she’d never wanted his help before, not even to save her life. But the feeling grew until it forced him to his feet. He treaded carefully toward Katara, who jerked in response to the sound of unmasked footsteps, and although her look of fear disappeared, it was replaced with something like confusion, something like apprehension. Her face was darkened, overshadowed by the foggy moon.

He sighed. “Katara, you should sleep”

“... I can’t.” 

He saw it now, the wide look in her eyes, almost desperate. She couldn’t sleep. Of course she couldn’t. The murderer of her mother, the monster who struck her mother down and left the body for her eight year old daughter to find in a scorched mess of blood and animal furs, was in the village a mere few miles away. They had planned on staking out the village in the morning. It would be easy to find their target in such a small area. Zuko was good at finding things.

She turned her head back at the moon. “He’s out there. I feel like if I blink for a second I’ll miss him. It’s… crazy, you know? I keep expecting him to jump out of the bushes somewhere like an evil spirit, but he’s probably just sleeping in his bed like it’s any other night.” 

Zuko paused, not knowing if he could speak. If he could offer any words at all. Try as he may, he didn’t have words of comfort at ready like his Uncle. It seemed inappropriate to barrel through whatever sounded right like he did with Sokka days before. He didn’t want to say something that would disturb this quiet moment in between them, where she was making herself vulnerable again. He didn’t want to betray that. 

So Zuko drew closer to her side. She looked at him with weary confusion. “What?” He said, as he lowered and sat down, knees to his chest like hers. “We’re both awake. I figured I might as well sit here and bore you to sleep-since you enjoy my company so much.”

She responded with nothing but an awkward pause. Zuko breathed in sharply-

“Was that a joke?” 

She spoke, breaking the silence. 

“... I guess.”

She let herself relax, leaning further on to the stump behind them. She sighed, and spoke as if to herself. “You and your weird sense of humor…” He could feel the familiar smirk in her voice, just quieter, this time.

Zuko had been patient, letting her express her anger through petty jabs and cruel threats alike. He knew he had deserved it justly for how he’d acted. But now he was just confused.

“How is my sense of humor  _ weird?”  _

_ “‘Leaf me alone, I’m bushed?’” _ she spoke, with a small smile on her tired face, flatly mocking.

“Okay, for the record, that was my Uncle’s joke.”  _ That’s just not fair. _ “Anyway… it would’ve been funny if I remembered all of it.”

In response, all Katara had was a yawn. She rested her head on her knees more fully, facing him with her eyes closed. Her thick lashes fluttered against her cheeks. “Still weird…”

“...Fine. Since mine’s so weird, what’s  _ yours?” _

She didn’t respond for a moment, as if thinking it over. “I dunno,” she said quietly. “I guess I’m having a good time right now…”

He had hardly heard her last words over the sound of the cicadas, as close as they were sitting next to each other. He looked over at her, about to ask her to repeat herself, when he noticed her face had gone completely still. 

“Katara? Are you awake?” he asked, dumbly. 

She was soundly asleep.

* * *

Katara woke with the vague notion that she left something unfinished. It was kind of disorienting. She was pretty sure she fell asleep doing or saying something, and yet she awoke in her sleeping bag, like normal. She couldn’t really remember the past night-everything blurred together, like one long dream.

“Good morning,” she heard Zuko say from somewhere above and far away.

“Oh… good morning.”

Zuko talked as he worked. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us. After some reconnaissance around the village it shouldn’t be too hard to locate Yon Rha. I hope you’re prepared.”

Katara lifted herself from her sleeping bag. She felt sore and her head hurt. The sky was still as grey and overcast as before, laying over everything like a bad spell. She stretched, breathing it all in like it would feed her-the smell of the oncoming rain, the campfire, the lingering acrid smell of the burnt strands of hair in her ponytail. 

“Of course I’m prepared. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this day my whole life.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote all of this at about 7 AM after that bit of dialogue got stuck in my brain, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Blame the sleep deprivation. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed!


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